Games We Play
by Oparu
Summary: John finds and Ancient computer 'game' and uses it to take a look at his life.


Three AM was usually when John Sheppard could count on all the rooms in the city finally being deserted except for those crew members unlucky enough to get stuck with the night shift. He knew he shouldn't have been sneaking. He knew the room was off-limits, using his security code to get through Elizabeth's seal was wrong and that he had no business playing with complicated ancient technology.

He just couldn't help himself.

It was a problem. One he'd never really run into before, well, once before without meaning too. He'd just wanted to prove that he could beat Rodney at something beside chess and flight simulators. Just because someone didn't have two phDs didn't make them less of a human being, and well, damn it all, it was an amazing game. At least, when he still thought it was a game. And he'd apologized. He'd even helped stop the war he'd created and he thought he and Elizabeth were okay again.

Well, as okay as they got.

John knew better. There was no getting around that. John knew he really didn't know what he was getting into, he just couldn't pry himself away from the computer in the buried little lab in the far corner of the south pier. It had taken him weeks to program it. Stealthily building the records for the database with the public logs, public records of the crew, his own personal observations and a few hundred gigabytes of private medical and psychological records he had managed to stumble across.

It wasn't his fault computer security in the infirmary was somewhat lacking. It also wasn't his fault that those failings had been pointed out to him by one of the scientists way too smart for her own good who just couldn't help being a do-gooder and telling her boss. He just happened to be that boss. It wasn't like he had read all the records. He'd just dumped them into the simulator to make it more realistic. That wasn't wrong was it?

It was just an experiment. A little social experiment safely inside a computer never hurt anyone and it was going to give him more insight into his crew.

It had nothing to do with Elizabeth.

Telling himself that wasn't making it true, but John liked to think he was above spending three weeks programming an incredibly complicated personality simulator just to find out what would happen if he formally asked his incredibly attractive, intelligent and painfully charming boss out on a date.

Even a lunch date.

Or possibly just kissed her. John had been leaning towards that lately because it just seemed so much easier than dealing with his own stupid way of talking when he and Elizabeth talked about anything like a date. It wasn't like she didn't date. There had been that complete idiot Dr Simon something who had refused to come to the city. He'd pried that out of Carson after he couldn't figure out why Elizabeth was so depressed on the way back from Earth. Simon he could have dealt with, the guy was obviously a moron.

Mike Branton? Well, that had been more surprising because he'd just seemed so boring. Why would Elizabeth want a geologist when she could have--

Stopping that dangerous train of thought, John sank into the chair in front of the computer console and began the start up process. He had the final piece. He'd ended up having to 'borrow' the part from the stack of Ancienty supplies Rodney liked to keep in the back of his lab. Rodney wasn't using it anyway. Behavioral studies weren't really part of Rodney's interests anyway.

Tucking the crystal containing the behavioral prediction algorithm the Ancients had developed into the computer, John watched with a Dr Frankenstein-like pride as his creation came online.

The last game had been little dots and a fairly simple text based interface. This one was a first person shooter. John quite literally stepped into the body of someone he had programmed into the game and controlled their actions. He had the default set to himself, after all, it seemed more ethical that way. It was also easier because he knew how he would react; things were more likely to turn out right if he was himself.

Luckily, the game seemed most interested in what he was interested in. John didn't have to sit through a boring recreation of a boring day in the city, he quite literally flew through the motions of a typical day in the life of John Sheppard until he came face to face with Dr Elizabeth Weir.

She was smiling. It looked just like her standing in front of him in the holographic chamber that accompanied the game. All he had to do was look at her and she started to smile. He almost lost his nerve staring at her before he remembered it was a game.

Stabbing the button with his eyes closed, John asked her out. Accepting his input patiently, the game obeyed.

When he opened his eyes, she was lying in bed next to him, laughing at something he was saying. That moment accelerated and she was dressed again, then in bed again, for a moment he almost thought she was naked and cursed himself for programming that in. John searched for the button he had pressed n the beginning, trying desperately to slow it down so he could actually see what was going on; hear what she was saying in response to his programming.

When he couldn't find it, he thought about restarting the game, doing it properly so he could experience every glorious moment of being with her.

John ended up just watching, stupefied by his own fantasy. It ran too fast for speech, and days flashed by in bursts of color. There was a puddle jumper date, than a date that looked suspiciously like Earth, then some kind of party, Ronon and Teyla were laughing with him-

From time to time, Elizabeth was naked again. Naked in his shower, naked in his bed; once naked outside on the north side of the city, the moonlight glinting off her stunning skin, Elizabeth transfixed him.

He was supposed to be playing, controlling his actions, but he was so distracted he'd let the game fall into some kind of autopilot. Elizabeth touched his face and looked concerned. A flash later she was crying, sitting on the floor of the very utilitarian bathroom in his tiny little room. He held her hair back as she vomited, trying not to feel weird as his holographic hands swooped in to tuck her dark holographic curls out of the way.

They talked more than they had. Elizabeth was naked less but she was constantly in his presence. She looked different, smiled more, laughed whenever he did anything that involved him flailing his hands around in front of him. He sat on her desk and watched her work. That was normal enough.

They were also in the infirmary, maybe once or twice in the whirlwind of time; he didn't quite understand why. He took his eyes off the holograms and finally found the pause button, a big blinking blue square on the bottom left of the panel, really damn obvious.

Elizabeth was pregnant.

He hadn't been ready for that. John had wondered if his idiot self was just getting injured, the game had predictive software based on his medical records after all, and he got injured more than he liked having to admit.

Instead of staring up at the infirmary ceiling, he was staring with Elizabeth at a green interpretation of some strange kind of creature on a screen in front of them. Carson's hand was visible in the corner of his fake field of view and his hand was wrapped around Elizabeth's so tightly his knuckles were white.

Panicking, he slammed the restart button by accident. Cursing his own stupidity, John took a moment to find the speed controls and started it again. This time he asked Elizabeth to lunch. It took almost an hour of real time, John didn't actually notice and the computer logged it for him, before she agreed to do anything but walk the city with him. He nudged his virtual self towards her, and this time she was the one to kiss him.

John felt himself start to flush as heat crept up his body. He couldn't physically kiss her, but Elizabeth was certainly interested in kissing him. Realizing this was quickly going to become more than a little uncomfortable, John reluctantly pushed the button that put it into high gear.

Naked Elizabeth flew past him. There was the occasional glimpse of his own naked arms or legs in bed with her, but most of the time Elizabeth's skin pressed against his own virtual chest was more than he'd ever thought he could have.

There were missions mixed into his fantasy, flashes of gunfire, explosions and the swerving, diving dogfights that took up so much of his time. Rodney appeared and disappeared. Ronon hit him. Teyla hit him. Aliens hit him and he killed the bad guys.

John really could have cared less for the bad guys. No matter how many Wraith he killed, he didn't feel safe until he was standing there in her office, watching her make fun of him and smile. When he was standing in front of General O'Neill in his dress uniform John knew he'd taken a different turn. Elizabeth wasn't in front of him, but next to him and there were Athosian flowers in her hair--

Reset.

Two dates and a illicity picnic in the jumper bay. Then a flash of gunfire, smoke and Elizabeth clung to him, sobbing while his blood pooled all around her. The hologram began to dim, mimicking what must have been his own death.

John startled back from the console, nearly falling out of his chair. Her face--

Reset.

He was on Earth, dragging himself through the snow on her sidewalk as she pulled him along to meet a woman who resembled an older version of her. John ended up marrying her in Las Vegas that time, Teyla and Ronon looking serene in Starfleet uniforms as Elizabeth stood next to him in one of those damn minidresses, in red.

John bit his lip viciously and wondered if there was a shower anywhere near the lab he could turn on cold.

Reset.

Elizabeth pushing him back on her desk to kiss him. Elizabeth naked as she climbed out of the ocean. Her hair on his pillow, on his jacket, falling in front of his eyes as the hologram dimmed out--

How many times was he going to die in the damn thing? Why did he always die in front of her? Making it back to Carson only to die in the infirmary, dying on the 'gate room floor or watching everything go dark just before Teyla dragged him into the blue circle of light.

Reset.

Elizabeth promoting him and kissing him in front of the entire city.

Reset. Reset.

John was trapped in a loop of perpetual motion, and every state of his being led him to more Elizabeth.

There was sweat in his hair when he let the program go dark. He was panting alone in the lab, exhausted and tingling all over as if he'd just ran the bridges of the city in a death dash with Ronon.

Had he screwed things up? Programmed it wrong? His life couldn't be that simple, could it?

Running his hands through his hair just made them damp and did nothing for his ability to think. The alarm on his watch went off and he silenced it without looking. There was only one way to know, one way to make sure he hadn't subconsciously cheated himself as he'd programmed it.

Well, he corrected as he wiped his hands on his trousers. Two ways.

John turned to the patient console and reprogrammed the scenario. This time instead of Elizabeth's face waiting for him to make a move, it was his own, his eyes calming waiting for input, his lips turned in a stupid looking half-smile--

He ran the program.

He- Elizabeth- sat at her desk and stared at her computer. Rodney came in. Teyla came in. Chuck came in, then Rodney again, then Rodney and Chuck together, then Rodney, Radek and three other scientists.

Was the computer basing this on duty logs? Elizabeth's notes? How many meetings did she have in a day?

John stopped wondering when he finally got a glimpse of himself lurking around her like a black shadow. The shadow was usually there. He followed Rodney and waited in the control room. He sat next to her at meetings. He ate with her at meals that weren't dates. John tapped a control and changed the scenario.

Elizabeth walked straight to his quarters and caught him sitting on the bed with his guitar. they spoke, he played something on the guitar and then he was staring at his own naked body as he- Elizabeth- got dressed and crept back to her quarters. The shadow never left him again.

His own naked body wasn't nearly as fun as hers, so John left it in fast forward until Elizabeth's movements seemed to change. At first he thought it was him falling asleep, then he realized Elizabeth's gait was different. She was pregnant, and few flashes later she was marrying him on the ramp at the SGC.

Reset.

He died in front of her and John wondered if that was wht an out of body experience would be like before he had to look away.

Reset. Reset. Reset.

When Elizabeth asked him out less directly they married in the 'gate room on Atlantis, and he looked confortable in his dress uniform for the first time in his life.

Reset.

The little girl looked so much like Elizabeth, her eyes, her damn curls- John started to chuckle when he realized the twisting of his stomach was his own jealousy of himself. He reached for reset again and stopped. He wanted to play this one out. He wanted to know.

His life, well, Elizabeth's life with him ran out in front of him like a home movie on steroids. They had another daughter, and, it must have been a surprise because the girls seemed to be nearly in school when the little boy showed up, a son.

They grew like weeds, getting taller and taller until they were just barely shorter than he was. One of the girls wore Air Force blue, the other wore Rodney's blue and the boy dressed like one of the men from Teyla's village. One of his girls found a man, John instantly didn't like whoever it was in the camouflage that he kept seeing with her. His son had a wife who seemed to be Athosian and his last daughter, well, he got to see his own look of surprise when she came home with a young woman's hand clasped tightly in her own.

He moved a little stiffly when he played with his grandchildren. His- Elizabeth's hands were starting to look old in front of him and one morning he woke up next to a sleeping, white haired John Sheppard who didn't move when Elizabeth shook him.

His eyes were stinging when he hit reset.

The game waited, paused and patiently planning how to carry out his eventual instructions. John pushed his chair back and dropped his head to the control panel. His head was pounding, he was so hungry he felt nauseous but he didn't want to stop. His life, every mutation, every version of his time with Elizabeth, even the times when he died staring up at her, were more incredible than anything he could have imagined.

Rubbing his eyes, John left the machine waiting and went for breakfast.

It was a lot later than he'd planned and the sun was pouring in through the windows around the mess hall. For some reason there wasn't a line, and John made it to the head of the table. He was gleefully pouring sugary frosted flakes into a plastic bowl when he saw the morning chef passed out behind the table.

Nearly dropping his cereal, John clutched it to his chest as he realized the room was full of the unconscious bodies of everyone else in the city. Well, everyone who was eating breakfast anyway.

"Shit," John groaned as he set down his cereal and reached for a donut he could eat while he was running. He had to get to her.

Where was she at the reset? Her quarters? In her office? Where did he always find her? John stuffed his donut is his mouth and swallowed it in four chunks nearly big enough to choke himself as he waited for the transporter to bring him up to control. Chuck was slumped on his console, Rodney was over by the bigger computer and Lorne's team was on the 'gate room floor.

Elizabeth--

Stretched out catwalk on the way to her office with her hair haloed around her head, Elizabeth was face down. He dragged her up, pulling her head into his lap and cradling her chin. Her pulse was steady, calm as if she were asleep. What had he done?

His exhausted brain dredged up the images of his experiences and made the connection as he wrapped her cool hand in his own. It always started with her. He rounded the corner into her office or saw her in the corridor, every moment of it came back to her.

It wasn't logic that told him to kiss her. John didn't really know what it was. He just knew he needed to kiss her because that worked in his program.

Fantasying about kissing Elizabeth had been pretty damn amazing, but it had nothing on the real thing. It was, fuck he didn't know what it was but it burst his world into clarity as if every moment of it beforehand had been part of the simulation.

For a moment, all he had was breath. Her breath soft and warm against his cheek and his own breath rushing in his ears. Heat became motion when her hand moved in his, motion became sound when she sighed. Elizabeth's eyes moved, slipping open as she started to move in his lap.

People started to move around him. John heard Rodney start to speak but he tuned it out.

Elizabeth was smiling at him. Wrapping her hand around his face, she caressed him as he helped her up. Leaning against the side of the catwalk, she smiled at him softly.

She touched her lips thoughtfully and kept smiling at him. "How'd you break us out of the time loop?"

"Time loop?" he repeated stupidly realizing that he might have created a mess of colossal proportions.

"Didn't you feel it?" Elizabeth asked softly studying him. "All those lifetimes resetting over and over?"

"Yeah-" he answered dumbly feeling the city crash in around him. "About that--"

"You broke the loop!" Rodney announced as he hurried over towards them. "How did you do it?"

Lorne's team was coming up the stairs, Teyla and Ronon stepped out of the transporter, if General O'Neill had called in over the Stargate just about then it would have made things perfect.

"I- uh- well," John started pathetically. His internal debate was quick, he knew when he was royally fucked. "I think I caused the time loop but, I fixed it so we're--"

Elizabeth's hand lashed out and cuffed him across the face. It stung enough to bring tears to his eyes.

"Ow--" he started to complain rubbing his jaw before her hands were wrapped around the back of his head and she was kissing him. The first time rocked his world, this was just, well-- "Kinda like the big bang."

"i was just thinking nothing blew up," Elizabeth teased him as she shook her head. "You?"

"Yeah," he replied sheepishly wondering what the third kiss would be like. "Me."

Rodney looked confused but Lorne and Teyla shared a look.

Ronon just started to chuckle. "You'd think the first time she said yes would be enough to drag you out into the real world," he teased as he reached down and ruffled John's hair. "She likes you. Idiot."

Rodney muttered to Teyla about how unfair it was John wasn't in trouble when he would most certainly have been yelled at.

Pointing to her office with one hand and wrapped her fingers around his wrist with the other, Elizabeth smirked. "Ronon's right," she murmured as she led him towards her desk.

"Oh yeah?" John asked still a little shell-shocked.

"Idiot," she whispered as she pushed him down into her chair. Leaning close enough that he could smell her again, she ran her hand along his chin. "And yes, she likes you. A hell of a lot, actually."


End file.
